


Rest Cure

by sameuspegasus



Category: Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Resident Evil - Degeneration, Romance, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 09:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21336118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sameuspegasus/pseuds/sameuspegasus
Summary: A burned out Angela Miller is sent to a virus-free island to get her head back in the game. But is the peaceful island what it seems? And what is Leon S. Kennedy, the man she pushed away, doing here?
Relationships: Leon S. Kennedy/Angela Miller
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Rest Cure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ffdarkwolf77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffdarkwolf77/gifts).

Angela Miller was off duty, or as off duty as anyone got these days. “Burned out,” her superior officer had told her, as he’d informed her it was time for her to take some leave. “Sloppy,” he’d called her, as he chewed her out for taking unnecessary risks. She paced restlessly along the beach of the secluded island she’d been sent to a for what was officially a respite, but felt a lot like a suspension. No amount of rationalisation had so far been able to quell her need to do something, to fix things, to make up for what Curtis had done. It was almost as though with each person she saved from the virus, a tiny mark of guilt was rubbed away. Responsibility for what had happened could not be laid entirely at Curtis’ feet, or even at those of the people who had manipulated him. Angela had not reached out. She hadn’t known how to help him after the death of his family, and so she hadn’t helped him. Hadn’t stopped him heading down his path of self-destruction and extremism. Hadn’t got him a cure. The weight of it sat heavily in her stomach, ached in her chest, painted her vision grey. But each person saved lightened the load a miniscule amount, like scales being slowly balanced, and so she threw herself into her work.

There was no virus on the island. Quarantine was strict, with full decontamination and testing for each person that arrived. It was a place of rest for the war-torn, like the sanatoriums in the old days of pre-virus wars. Law enforcement officers and other emergency personnel were sent here for a break when they were judged compromised to the point of being unable to perform their jobs effectively, or at risk of joining those they were fighting against. Their weapons were impounded before they boarded a flight to the island. They couldn’t have a thousand armed, traumatised soldiers trapped on an island together. The rest of the population was made up of the extremely wealthy, who could afford to buy safety for themselves and their families. A small boy, perhaps three or four years of age, splashed in the sea near Angela, his laughter making her breath hitch and her fists clench, her nails digging into her palms. He had probably been born here, tucked away from reality at the first sign of trouble, never knowing what was happening in the rest of the world. It should make her happy to see his joy, his innocence untouched by the horrors of the world, but it doesn’t. All it does is make her think of the millions and millions of children around the world who don’t have the luxury of laughing and splashing. She should be there now, pulling them from danger. How many children had died since she’d been sent here? How many lives had been destroyed?

A couple was sitting on the sand, watching the boy with smiles on their faces. The woman leaned into the man’s embrace, relaxed and happy in a way Angela can’t remember ever feeling. The closest she had come was the short time with Leon, after their narrow escape from the research facility, and even that had been plagued by nightmares of her brother’s transformation, a huge, pulsating eyeball haunting her every time she closed her eyes. They had never really got past tension and prolonged eye-contact into comfort and familiarity before he’d been called away by the government and she’d been called away by her guilt. The man looked up from his son to Angela, his expression open and friendly in a way no one on the mainland had looked for years. It was the face of self-assurance and privilege. Angela looked away, torn between anger and the urgent need to preserve it. She walked on down the beach, in the growing shadows cast by the palm trees as the sun set. 

“Angela?” The voice came from the shadows behind her.

Angela spun towards the noise, dropping into a fighting stance. She cursed the sand as her feet sunk into it, slowing her down. If necessary, she could kick it into someone’s eyes, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She felt more vulnerable here, weaponless and alone, than she ever had fighting the infected or walking the lawless streets of post-virus Harvardville. 

A man emerged from the darkness, tall and well built, his dark hair hanging in curtains over his expressionless face. 

“Leon?” she gasped.

Leon looked up from beneath his fringe, catching her eye and holding her gaze. Angela stared back, hardly believing it could be him. She had thought she would never see him again. The world was a dangerous place and they both had dangerous jobs. The odds of one or both of them dying on any given day was much higher than the odds of them running into each other.

Leon held her gaze a moment longer before finally blinking and stepping closer, his expression unchanged. 

Angela reached out to take his hands, all the words she wanted to say trapped in her throat. Her heart thudded, thoughts tangling in her head. “Leon,” she said again.

“You’re safe,” Leon said wonderingly, his eyes not leaving her face. Angela internally cursed his poker face, either natural or trained into him by his job. It made it impossible to decipher his feelings.

Angela let her body take over, ignoring the voice in her head telling her relationships were a bad idea. How could she be with someone when she should be throwing her whole life into protecting those unable to protect themselves? How could she relax and be happy with someone when she was indirectly responsible for so many people losing people they loved? Why would Leon even want to be with her? She reached for his hand, relief at seeing him alive and whole overtaking her misgivings. 

As her fingertips brushed his skin, the sky lit up. The ground shuddered beneath them, a thunderous boom breaking through the quiet evening. They pulled away from one another, on guard, turning to see the cloud of flame bursting upwards where the airport had stood. They cast a glance at each other, and in silent agreement ran towards the flames.

Chaos surrounded them as they neared the airport. With so many law-enforcement officers on the island, some organisation might have been expected, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Many of the people on the island had been severely affected by the things they had seen in the course of their battle with the infected, and were panicking or seeing things that weren’t there. Others were wasting time arguing about who outranked who and who should be giving the orders. Still others were picking up whatever was nearest that could be used as a weapon and wading into the riot of bodies without a second thought or a plan. The infected were flowing out of the burning airport in hundreds.

Angela hesitated, shocked. T-virus, or maybe something new. There shouldn’t be any virus on this island, not with the quarantine in place, and even if someone carrying the virus had made it as far as the testing facility in the terminal, it shouldn’t have been able to spread so fast. 

“There was a secret facility under the airport,” Leon shouted to her over the noise, “I was undercover.”

Angela nodded, recovering her businesslike, practical nature. “Is there a cure in the building?”

“I heard about something in a safe in the ultra-high security storage unit,” Leon told her, “Some kind of aerosol that prevents contact transmission. It’s what the unit were working on with their herd of infected.” His tone didn’t change, but Angela thought she could see scorn in his eyes, barely discernible in the light of the burning building. 

“Let’s go,” she said, picking up a discarded baseball bat from where it had rolled near her feet and shaking the gore off it. “We need to get there fast.” 

Leon pulled out a handgun. She didn’t know how he’d got it on the island, but there was no time for questions. The streets were being overrun, the unarmed officers and wealthy civilians quickly overpowered or turned. People were putting up a fight, but without a cure everyone on the island would be infected by morning. An image of the little boy, happily splashing in the sea as his parents looked on flashed across Angela’s mind. She brushed it aside. Now was no time for sentimentality.

It wasn’t far to the burning airport, but it was slow going. They stuck close to walls, dashing from hiding spot to hiding spot in short, sharp bursts. Leon’s body pressed against hers as they huddled behind a wall, waiting for one of the infected to stumble by. He breathed in deep, controlled breaths, his chest rising and falling against her. “One day we’ll do this without the zombies,” he whispered in her ear. 

A young woman in military-issue clothing leapt gracefully from behind a tree, kicking the zombie to the ground and holding it there with her knee as she bashed its head in with a rock.

“Come on,” Angela hissed, tugging briefly at Leon’s arm. 

Together they took down six of the infected on their way to the airport and the secret facility where Leon had been working undercover. Angela was breathing hard and covered in blood, her arms aching from wielding the baseball bat instead of her usual gun, but she shrugged it off, shaking out her fatigued muscles as she prepared to enter the compound. 

“Ready?” Leon asked her, as he checked the magazine of his gun. She nodded and let him lead the way to a door, well hidden in shrubbery. They were in a park, close enough to the burning airport that everything was bathed in flickering orange light, but far enough away that nobody would associate the concealed door with the airport. Heat seared her skin, painful even at this distance from the flames. 

Angela blinked, blinded by the utter blackness of the stairwell they stepping into. The afterimage of the flame-lit world danced in her eyes for a moment before fading to black. Slowly her eyes adjusted enough to make out the shape of Leon descending the stairs ahead of her. She felt her way down after him, one hand on the wall as the other gripped the bat, shuffling her feet for the edge of each step. 

When they finally reached the bottom of the steps (seven hundred, by Angela’s count), Leon punched a code into a panel on the wall, feeling for each number in the dark. Miraculously, considering the state of things above ground, the power was still on. The code worked and the door swung inwards, lights turning on automatically. So much for the element of surprise. 

The compound was much bigger than she’d been expecting. They always were. This floor was a single large room, bigger than two football fields together. Along each side stood a row of what looked like holding pens, Angela noted with disgust.The entire floor was completely empty. Leon looked at her for a long moment. “They’ve been released deliberately,” he said grimly, “The researchers must have taken them up into the airport in the elevators and burned the place down after them.”

“Where’s the safe?” Angela asked. There would be time to discuss and condemn what had happened here later. Right now, they had work to do.

Leon led the way through the levels of the compound, descending through more empty rooms of labs and offices and cages, all abandoned. 

“Stop,” Leon said suddenly, holding out an arm to block her way. She peered around him to see what he’d seen. A heavy metal door marked the end of the corridor. In front of it stood the first person they had seen in the whole building. He was short and slight, a balding man in a pristine white lab coat. He didn’t look menacing, but in Angela’s experience, it was often the ones that appeared the least threatening that were the most dangerous. 

“Hello Leon,” the man said, in a pleasant, friendly tone, “I’ve been expecting you. And you’ve brought a friend. How nice.”

“Doctor van Fleet,” Leon answered expressionlessly, edging subtly in front of Angela, as though to block her from view. “What’s going on?”

Doctor van Fleet laughed the high pitched maniacal laugh of a man who has lost all perspective. “It was all a trap,” he told them, as the door to the stairway slammed closed behind them. “You couldn’t just mind your own business and let people make a living, could you, Leon S. Kennedy? You wanted the chance to take down the virus, well, here it is. All you have to do to get the aerosol and be the hero is get past me. I even left the safe unlocked for you.”

“Just give us the cure, Doctor van Fleet,” Leon said calmly, “Your cooperation will be taken into account at sentencing.”

Doctor van Fleet laughed again, mockingly this time, and pulled a syringe from his lab coat pocket. Before Leon could even raise his gun, the doctor stabbed the needle into his neck and pushed the plunger down. 

Memories of Curtis flashed through Angela, her breathing catching and becoming irregular as she watched the inconspicuous scientist ripple and mutate. Leon squeezed her hand. She hadn’t even noticed herself slipping her hand into his. She squeezed back and pulled away, gripping her baseball bat.

Watching the G-virus do its work was no less horrifying for the second time. Seams ripped, the lab coat falling away from the doctor’s expanding body. Enormous talons protruded from twisted hands designed to shred. Worst of all was the staring, bloodshot eye that sprung from his shoulder, larger than his head and glaring at Leon and Angela. 

Angela adjusted her hands on the bat, preparing to swing as the mutated doctor charged at them, swiping with his razor sharp claws.

“Go under,” Leon hissed at her, “I’ll distract him. Get the aerosol upstairs and set it off. If I don’t make it out… it’s been fun.” He leveled his gun at the monster, aiming for the eye and fired.

Angela dropped to the floor, rolling under the flailing arm of the scientist, regaining her feet and sprinting for the door of the vault without pausing to check on Leon or see what was happening behind her. Looking back could be fatal, not just for her but for Leon and for everyone on the island above them.

The door was, as promised, open for her. She slipped in and set about searching for the aerosol, regretting having asked so few questions about its appearance. It felt like she spent hours frantically scanning the vault for the canister. In the corridor outside, the sounds of the fight intensified. Ripping metal screeched like fingernails on a blackboard, but a thousand times louder and more terrifying. Bodies thumped against walls and each other, and it was all undercut by the taunts of the scientist, his voice deeper and rougher than before the mutation. 

At last, Angela found a silver aerosol canister, a glass window in it showing a shiny green liquid. It was too large to fit in a pocket and had no handle - she’d have to discard her weapon to hold it and still have a hand free. Clutching the precious container protectively, she looked out of the vault just in time to see Leon fly through the air and thud into the wall, thrown by a swipe of the mutated doctor’s massive fist. He recovered quickly, wiping blood from his emotionless face, unwilling as always to show his pain. He raised his gun as the doctor turned towards him. “Now,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Angela ran, the gunshot ringing in her ears, not stopping to look at Leon or wonder if he’d survive. Blood and vitreous splattered warmly on her as the bullet made its mark on the monster’s giant eyeball. She ignored it and ran, slipping slightly on a spot of the jelly-like substance that landed in front of her, focussing only on getting the cure to the people above ground.

Angela was fit from years of training and missions and months of forcing herself past what seemed like breaking point, but by the time she neared the surface it felt like death would be preferable to more stairs. Her lungs burned and her legs trembled as she stumbled up the dark stairway, the aerosol slipping in her sweat-slicked hand. She wiped it on her shirt, itself wet with sweat, and dragged herself up on the hand rail. 

When she finally reached the top of the stairs, tumbling out into the park, the fire was still burning fiercely, the infected and clean waging furious battle silhouetted against its glow. The previously empty park was now a war site, as group of the infected bearing down upon a pair figures armed with pointed sticks.

Angela shook the canister, twisting the top to release the spray into the air. As the tiny green droplets spread through the air, exhaustion overtook Angela. Her legs collapsed under her and she fell to the ground, crawling into the meagre hiding place supplied by a patch of bushes before everything went black. Her last thought was of Leon, the way his body had felt against hers, the look in his eyes when they had seen each other for the first time in months.

***

“Angela? Angela?” The sound of her name slowly penetrated through the fog in her brain. It was a familiar voice, masculine and comforting, although she couldn’t quite place it. She blinked, opening her eyes a slit and quickly closing them again as the brightness of a clean, white room hit her. 

“You should be in bed, Mr Kennedy,” the disapproving voice of a nurse cut in, “You lost a lot of blood.”

Angela started, suddenly awake. The island. T-virus. Burning airport. Leon, fighting the G-virus mutant alone in an underground facility as she ran to get the vaccine to the surface. “Did it work?” she croaked. “Did it stop the spread?”

“It worked,” Leon confirmed, his voice rough with exhaustion. 

Angela opened her eyes and looked up at him, squinting in the light. He was clean, dressed in military-hospital issue pyjamas. A raw graze ran down the right side of his face and his left arm was in a sling, but he seemed to have come out of his fight with Doctor van Fleet remarkably well. 

Angela sighed with relief. “And you?”

“I’m fine,” he told her, reaching for her hand.

“I’m so glad,” she said, “About everyone, but… especially you.”

Leon squeezed her hand and looked down at her, an almost imperceptible smile on his face. “Me too.” Then he leaned down and kissed her gently, in a way she hadn’t realised she’d been waiting for.

The End 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for any major errors in characterisation and canon. I have only seen the movie once, so it's pretty unlikely I'll get everything right.
> 
> Anyway, Happy Birthday, Mel. Less than six months late!
> 
> PS: You wanted cheese. I feel like I made a decent fondue.


End file.
